The Wisdom Wall

“if the engineers aren't working on stuff that is going to generate a payback within six months, then they need to be reallocated or they're gone. So that's what it's all about. It's all about how do I get payback within six months, and I want to get at least a three times return within 12 months.”

“There's, um, there's inflation, there's salary inflation in the market, uh, companies are responding by increasing quotas, um, and it's just not possible. It's not possible for sales reps to hit their, hit those numbers, and I, and I think that sets up I think that sets up, you know, um, some, you know, some bad juju…”

“I would say that as a founder, if you have an opportunity to get cash from the government at this point, like I try to do it. Um, and you're certainly going to pay enough in taxes over your lifetime. So if this is your one opportunity to get a little bit, then, then, then sure. As long as it's not too onerous and…”

“If you're the expert, you can actually charge someone 10,000 dollars to understand their needs in great detail and give them a proposal that they can then use to, they can hire you and your software, or they can go to your competitor. But most likely they're going to go to you.”

“in a time of crisis, your cost of capital is enormous, which means that you need to get payback very quickly with a high level of certainty. So a new sales rep is going to be a very uncertain investment. It's going to take too long. So if you've got four reps and, you know, one of them still ramping, cut the one that's…”

“there are a lot of CMOs out there that'll just, you know, they have an experimental budget and they're going to buy like 12 SaaS things. And then they're, they know they're going to cut at least 50% of them after a year. So you've got to make sure that you are driving a lot of value in quickly if you want to make the…”

“What I encouraged was to start from literally employee one. So I'm employee one, the CEO. I'm the first employee. Who else do I absolutely need? Okay. I need someone in finance. Okay. I need one person in marketing, whatever. So build up from the bottom instead of come down from the top.”

“And actually, I think that's one of the best things that you could do at this time. Again, you strengthen the company, you, you raise more cash. The employees are super motivated. Um, so, uh, it's a, it's a, it's a good move.”

“So I think in nine months, um, most good founders, founders and CEOs can figure out how to get their company a profit. Um, and so nine months to me is the, is the absolute minimum of time that you need.”

“Normally in engineering, you want to get a 20 times return on investment within two years.”

“north of ten million, the growth has definitely gotten harder.”